Road Warrior: Standstill at GWB? Just blame the weather

It costs $13 cash to cross it — nearly 10 times more if you drive a big truck — and crossings have dipped more than 7 percent since 2008. It’s also a magnet for suicides and enough political intrigue to interfere with Governor Christie’s presidential ambitions.

But for road warriors, the most infuriating question about the George Washington Bridge has little to do with tolls, ridership, death or politics:

Why has it been taking so long lately to cross the busiest suspension bridge in the world?

"Five hours for what would normally be a 40- to 60-minute trip to Maywood!" railed Larry Finch after he and his wife suffered an unpleasant crawl home from Manhattan on Tuesday.

Hint: Like many 83-year-olds, The George needs surgery, and it’s been getting some lately, including work on a new, steel upper deck that has prompted the repeated overnight closing of three lanes. Last night’s installment of that ongoing saga was expected to be especially brutal — with a trio of upper-deck lanes to be closed in both directions until 10 this morning.

But that off-peak-hour disruption was announced. The worst traffic jams are unexpected. Like avalanches, they keep getting worse until there’s nowhere to escape. Tuesday’s avalanche featured stalling trucks, which are only allowed on the span’s upper level, where delays were heaviest, so truckers had no alternate routes. Diesels fared worst, said Gail Toth, executive director of the New Jersey Motor Truck Association.

"Most people don’t realize that newer diesel trucks don’t do well when they idle for a long time in the cold," Toth explained.

This extraordinary backup wasn’t an isolated incident or a routine example of zealous Christmas shopping. It marked the third time in four weeks that traffic anywhere near the iron goliath had nearly stopped moving, usually because parts of the new upper-deck rehabilitation job had given way, creating cracks or holes.

That’s no misprint: Potholes were reported in the decking currently being installed on one of America’s gold-standard bridges!

When they learned about this, almost anybody who depends on The George and its stewards wanted answers. Is the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey keeping up with the maintenance of one of the region’s chief economic engines? Is this another case of political mismanagement — the kind that led two of Christie’s cronies to resign in the wake of four days of similar gridlock on the Fort Lee side? Or horror of all horrors, at age 83, is this giant landmark finally coming to the end of its useful life?

Port officials are often reluctant to offer complete answers to such sensitive questions, but they were talking this time.

The GWB, which carries 98 million vehicles a year on its 14 lanes, remains an "outstanding, iconic jewel" that should never be confused with the nearly 12 percent of American bridges that the Federal Highway Administration calls structurally deficient, said Peter Zipf, the Port Authority’s chief engineer.

OK, but unlike its namesake, The George is hardly the image of American perfection. Perhaps its weakest feature is the 35-year-old steel decking on its eight-lane upper level.

"The useful life is about 20 years," Zipf said.

One common way to save money when times are tough is to postpone maintenance.

Businesses and government agencies prioritize such decisions all the time, especially since the recession in 2008. So, because the upper level’s steel decking continued to function well enough when it reached its 20s, the Port Authority delayed replacing it. And after the 9/11 attack, the agency also diverted truck traffic to the upper deck to improve overall bridge security.

What happened next was predictable. Added abuse from big rigs began to weaken the upper level’s supporting beams, said the chief engineer. So in late 2010, the PA authorized a $199 million upper-level rehabilitation — as much as $87 million of it dedicated to deck replacement.

Doing that in a short time frame without completely disrupting traffic — always big priorities — would require a crane, mostly overnight work schedules, and diversion of traffic to the lower level while work continued above. Workers were given the task of installing 632 pre-fabricated panels on top of new steel support beams. To speed this process, the 6-by-11-foot panels were trimmed in advance to fit easily on the beams.

As Zipf explained it, this plan worked well — to a point. What tripped him up had nothing to do with intrigue or politics or outside interference — all the issues that routinely generate news about his bi-state agency. Instead, his nemesis turned out to be the same unpredictable factor that civil engineers and motorists frequently stumble over: weather.

Some days in the last four weeks were unseasonably cold. Unlike last year, snow also fell.